Atlantic City will again try to prohibit smoking in casinos

Noah K. Murray/The Star-LedgerA customer smokes a cigarette while playing slots in the smoking section of an Atlantic City casino.

The Atlantic City Council will try again next week to enact a total ban on smoking at the 11 casinos, nearly a year after a partial ban was enacted limiting smoking to no more than 25 percent of the casino floor.

Councilman Bruce Ward said he plans to introduce a measure at Wednesday's meeting to ban all smoking on the casino floor. He said three others on the nine-member council have said they will support the measure and that he is close to convincing a fifth member to sign on.

"There has been a year of compromise, and the public health issues are compelling," Ward said. "It's really time to cut bait here and let's go forward."

In February 2007, the council was ready to enact a total smoking ban, but backed down in the face of intense opposition from the casino industry, which feared it could lose as much as 20 percent of its revenue and as many as 3,400 jobs.

The council then adopted a compromise ordinance requiring at least 75 percent of the casino floor to be nonsmoking.

The law also required the gambling halls to build permanent, walled-off, ventilated areas, although no deadline was imposed on them to complete the work. None has even started such an enclosure.